A Local Yokel on Side Quest Time

I really felt like I tapped into something last week with the "Ritualize the Analog" essay, but it's typically the case that I miss the forest for the bark on the trees. It's so rare that I am able to bring into words a concept that I use to help me live my life. I certainly didn't recognize that I had created a wee bit of practical theory in the moment, but Sharon, one of my smart friends, said to me in a voice message, "I cannot wait to see how you unpack this concept." At first, I was like, "wait, did I not explain it enough?" (hehe) Then I sat back and thought for a minute with my monkey brain coming to rest. "Yes, to ritualize the analog is a concept that can be built out and explored like any of the theories you use to see the world around you and guide your actions," I thought to myself. WHAM! Just like that I was gifted this little bit of wisdom that I could use to guide my actions.

It's not truly that surprising when we fail to notice our own innate ability to theorize in this day and age. It's hilarious in my case, because I taught theory to undergrads for a few years while getting my PhD and built the entire class around teaching people that they were theorists. So, here I am forcing my cousin Sharon to carry me back to the watering hole after getting dehydrated out on some quixotic quest in an urban alley scrawled with new, ominous signs and sigils. I can't be to hard on myself and neither should you. Our lack of time and space is the product of being immersed in an economic, political, and cultural system that robs of this capacity. One can't theorize their way our of the labyrinth if they are constantly responding to the latest information bomb that is pummeling our every olfactory orifice (especially our eyes and ears). This is the theatrical genius of the Cheetohead, who is a master of using the information bomb in his numerous sleight of hand tricks to loot the States. Yet, despite all this stimuli, we are still hard at work weaving disparate causes and effects into chains that explain our current reality.

I just want to pause for a moment to marvel at this. It's no small feat that we are these tremendous forces of swirling water, air, fire, and earth that co-create cultures and bring them to life by acting them out each day. The pure fact that there is any coherent order to the world we live in is a testament to our ability to, as I say almost every essay now, conspire to keep each other alive. Sure there are some incredible psychotic, asocial people that have hijacked critical positions of power and are attempting to burn the bridges that link us all to one another by convincing us, in bad faith, that we are a danger to one another. Yet, no person, regardless of how well positioned they are, can overcome the simple truth that we will always remain at our core analog beings, interconnected in our dreams of what we can create tomorrow.

Consequently, my aim with weaving my explanatory stories, a simple explanation of what a theory is at its core, has always been to spread knowledge that gives us the ability to render visible the processes, institutions, or people that are attempting to enchant us into their vision of the world that holds us back from understanding our inherent equity and power. In his text Outline of a Theory of Practice, Pierre Bourdieu noted this fact plainly: "every established order tends to make its own entirely arbitrary world seem entirely natural." Explanatory stories help us identify and shed all the constraints and norms of those arbitrary worlds and get us back into just being a conscious mammal with a penchant for tool creation that is in conversation with the infinite and aims to solve problems collectively.

Like with most things: You have a choice, even if it's within certain structurally-prescribed limits, on whether you will adopt the dominant culture you are embedded in or you will walk your own path. You have the choice about whether you jack into the matrix on doomscroll mode all day or if you let your skin be caressed by the wind. You have a choice about whether you take on an extreme physical training regime to meet certain gender or humanmaxxing norms or if you just enjoy the simple joy of moving your body for some time. You have the choice about whether you make art to be noticed by others or if you use art to let your own soul shine. In short, you have the choice about whether you write your own story or you just get wrapped up in a drama or AI slop that has been handed to you.

When I am talking about ritualizing the analog, I am explicitly calling us forth into our own obligation to take take a step back from the noise of today and step into an active role in showing up in our everyday life. This is one of the big reasons that I started the "A Quiet Practice" project so many years ago. I wanted a series of physical bookmarks that I could use to refind my way back to myself. I was sick of getting taken for endless rides by other folks' agendas, stories, and expectations. I wanted to chart my own course. That's why weaving, spinning, dyeing, bike questing, and keeping a garden have been so important to me. Each practice is a thread that I can pick up that will lead me back to myself as a physical being in a certain time and space that is on a rock hurtling around a star. No matter how far afield my wage labor or the news cycle takes me, these analog practices will always be there to bring me back home to myself and help me explore what it means to be human.

As I was completing some weaving finishing work yesterday with baby M on the ground playing next to me, I felt the truth of these words so viscerally. It was late afternoon on a 90 degree day. As is common practice in our high desert plain, all the shades were drawn and we were enjoying some quiet rest, hiding from the sun. I was wiped out from attempting to bike quest in the 90 degree weather earlier in the day when the kids were with my in-laws. Emotionally, I felt a little fried. As anyone with kids can speak to, it's a real ride to work full time, co-parent two kids, and maintain an art practice. IKSRE's Unfurl tape played on our cassette deck, and M played with all the toys strewn across the floor of the living room. I picked up a tapestry I just completed the weaving on and started to complete the finishing work of tucking in the warp ends of the weaving. All of a sudden, I just felt this visceral sense that I had arrived in such a pleasant moment with me cozily working on a craft and M playing blissfully with some toys. The finishing work had led me right out of my head and into this perfect moment. I felt the pangs of heart ache and satisfaction that comes from being in a moment one dreams of being in when they are a young person, building a family to call their own. All the noise of modern life had fallen away, I was just a man with his family working with assembling fibers in a pleasing way to build community with someone else. It was a moment beyond story. Neither of us was thinking of what this moment even meant. We were just present with each other as we putzed along in each of our own forms of play. It was a moment that has occurred millions of times across the millennia of human history. For just the briefest instance, I touched the real.

As you all know, I am quite fond of getting tattoos. I enjoy the conversation with the artist and the time out of western-imposed-production time that is so a part of the ritual of getting a tattoo. To further magnify the ritual element of tattooing, I used to be the dude who placed a premium on the tattoo meaning something extremely significant. These days, I am less trying to cover my body with signs, sigils, and markers of my lost kin. I am just interested in the process of being in the process of tattooing and marking my skin in ways that will further signify my distance from those groups in society that I do not feel in kinship with. I now enjoy selecting off the flash sheet to let the artist tattoo their own work, especially after having grown tired of the process of building custom tattoos.

This past week found me back on the massage table for a tattoo with fren Jenna of Current Fair. After multiple cancellations with our sick season that included four separate rounds of norovirus and a bout with Hand, Foot, and mouth, It felt like a miracle to be able to get a tattoo again. In the days leading up to the tattoo, I walked on egg shells, went to bed early, and stayed absurdly hydrated. When the day arrived, my stomache felt off, so I started to worry. Luckily, it was just the typically nervous stomach of someone with generalized anxiety disorder. It turns out that being almost 40 doesn't preclude you from still being a nervous nellie. I shouldn't have expected any less. I stay nervous and anxious; It's the elder millennial way. Apparently, someone else on the route to Jenna's studio understood that fact, because I saw a LEXAPRO vanity license plate on the road I took to her to her studio yesterday. (DRAT for my destination-mode stopping me from snapping a photo).

As is typical of the vagabond I am, I bike quested over to my appointment to Jenna's studio with enough film cameras, water, and snacks to outfit a roving band of nomads. I tried stopping at the camera store to pick up some film on the way, but I ran out of time. For someone who is a self-described slow person who likes to go off on side quests, you would think that I would compensate by allowing more time. That ability to schedule ahead enough is still alluding me though. Well, I should say that it is less scheduling ahead, because I always plan on leaving earlier than I do. It's all the wild little things that society requires of me that pop up in the middle of the day that result in poor execution. I literally walk around like a little guilt production machine that is ready, willing, and able to guilt trip myself out of taking PTO. That's why my previous vacation was literally a miracle. It allowed me to let the little guilt buddy rest for a hot minute. Go over there and rest, little buddy.

Jenna was real nice to your ole nervous nellie Jimblers, helping me get settled in that time-out-of time. In no time, I felt very at ease after I had snapped a few photos of her incredible space near downtown, got the stencil situated on my arm, and we had started the tattoo. It's such an odd thing to try to describe why I am able to get so locked in while someone is repeatedly stabbing me with an ink-dipped needle-gun. Once I get talking, however, I forget everything about what has brought me to that space, including most of the pain while getting the tattoo. I am just talking to another artist about trying to survive in our neoliberal hellscape. There is something so special about that time, because we often don't make time for that sort of one-on-one connection. That special brew of little insights and wisdom that gets mixed up while two artists are shooting the breeze is the big reason why I keep getting tattoos.

And just like that, we were done. I am oath-bound to not divulge any of the ingredients in our strange brew that we mixed up. The truths we explored were too ARCANE, too OCULTED for anyone to discern. We spoke in the ancient language of the JAHOULIES! Do you speak JAHOULIE? Well, bring your decoder ring to the 7th circle of the Northeast Quest Quadrangle Authority under the 8th new moon and I will reveal you the secrets of the ancients learned in my conversation with JENN(T)A(CULAR). I snacked on some GORP and got ready to get back on my bike. Jenna was super nice and expressed some interest in learning to weave. Lucky for her, I have four free weaving kits to teach folks.

SIDEQUESTS, EXCELLENT!

As I walked out, I looked at my Casio F-91W digital watch and realized with a startle, "I STILL HAVE TIME TO QUEST!" Honestly, have you experienced the glory of using this $30 dollar watch that no one cares about because its disposable? Well, you should think about it. They are the (un)official timepiece of bike quests everywhere, because there is no fuss involved. You just slap it on, and BLAMMO, you don't have to use your pocket idiot machine to check the time. That 30 dollar bit of plastic and rubber is worth the weight of a 90s era Cadillac in gold if it can shortcircuit you from approaching your pocket idiot machine and begin scrolling any braindead app. I certainly need that help, because I am still on those apps. A faint, disembodied cry of "Cooooonnnnntennnttt" can be heard coming from my mouth when I am on thee olde Instabraindead that could easily bemistaken as the same rallying cry of a horde of undead calling for "BRAINNZZZ!" in any zombie film. I got to my bike, unlocked my gigantic ulock, unthethered my cable from my wheels, and set out to ride.

As per usual, I was on the Rivendell Clem-L step-thru quest machine deluxe. Rivendell doesn't include any details on the quest proclivities of the Clem in their write up. If you read between the lines though, you can see the potential clear as day. The Clem-L poster I have up on my basement wall proclaims, "Commute! Shop! Tour! Jack of All Trades, Master of Most, And Hobo-Affordable." Next to the script is what appears to be a jovial, vagabond riding a basketed Clem, heading off right into adventure. They may not be saying it, but Rivendell is green lighting the Clem-L as your next go-to quest machine. I know I have ridden thousands of carefree miles to accomplish quests of vital importance to the realm, shot hundreds of photos of absurd little happenstances and happy accidents, and discovered a little bit more about myself and what it means to be a human. So, basically, I am saying its one of my favorite bikes.

I didn't get far once I rode into the street. Immediately across the street from where I parked, I saw a beige on beige ("BOB"- Description). I always enjoy when it's a bit of an off-kilter BOB. I suppose that real recognize real, like the kids say, because I am also super off-kilter. This one was this beautiful rectangle of light, washed out cream set against a background of a robin's egg blue. To make matters even better, the sewer cover right below the grass had this darker shade of true blue that screamed out like it wanted to be included in the photo. The funny thing about that sewer cover is that I didn't even notice how it perfectly rounds out the scene until I looked at the photo after the fact I immediately thought to myself how lovely it is to see color play like this for free as I ride around. Somewhere, I can hear Bob Ross intoning, "and as you know, we don't make mistakes, we have happy accidents."

I slipped my polaroid photo into the insulated back pocket of camera case to give it space to develop, protected from the dark and some of the heat. I jumped back on my bike and rode back uphill one block to my turn onto 9th. I know 9th well. I put 2,000 miles on our e-cargo bike taking my daughter J to her school that was in around these parts, sometimes taking 9th to avoid the traffic on 11th and 12th. We probably would have put another 2,000 miles into those commutes if the school had remained open. Towards the end of our first year, the school was closed, because the owner of the building thought he was gonna be able to sell the property to a luxury apartment developer. As the fates do ordain, the deal fell through a few months after the school closed, scattering hundreds of families to find new childcare options. The building still sits empty as one of the countless signs that Denver is a once booming town that's gone bust. One can't help but think there was some sort of karmic payback at play.

I turned east heading toward the plains, toward the flatlands I am more familiar with as someone raised in Ohio. I passed a tagged street sign that I had neglected to take pictures of on my way in. Now on sidequest time, I just had to make sure that I successfully played photography frogger with the one-way arterial traffic that kept interrupting my shot. First, I took a photo of the back of the sign, which hilariously said, "Blah Blah," and had a variety of random stickers and marker tags. Then, I got my 35mm, polaroid, and Iphone (triple back up) shots of the front of the sign. Luck was on my side that I had just the perfect amount of time to get all my shots before traffic roared past. As you well know by now, I am always on an OHURT scavenger hunt, because they are rad (read more about why I photograph their work in this essay). I also really like what lurk did with their tags using the white to emphasize the directional purpose of the sign. That is genius. It screams out to say, "HARK, young person, we are LURK'ing down this way.!"

Once the car parade passed toward downtown, I safely crossed the street and looked south down the next alley. I was intrigued by a rather bare, green dumpster with one of two tags on it. Something came over me that made me want to get a full 360 degree look at it, so I slowly rolled down the alley. As is sometimes the case, the dumpster ended up not being a good example of trash treasure (trashure for the uninitiated - hat tip to BIG HOMIE ABRACADABRA). However, there right before my eyes were two other really cool BOBs. One featured this cool interplay of brick, rust-colored paint, and circuitbreaker box metal. I am awarding 37 bonus points to myself for getting the UPS driver in the frame on accident who also perfectly matched this photo.

The other find in this little alcove of liminal space was a dumpster triptych framed perfectly in their little sheltered abode. Each dumpster has their own unique story to tell. BEWARE, I will now anthropomorphize the dumpsters. Yes, I am indeed again that cliche-dood, finding himself in derelict spaces. In fact, I feel very much like this trio of dumpsters tells the story of me before, during, and after the tattoo from left to right. Embroiled in wage labor, parenting, and the vicissitudes (a 50 cent word!) of everyday life in a bureaucracy, I felt small and insignificant with my brain going 500 miles per hour to and fro, to and fro. Yeah, I felt scarred just like my little buddy on the left who was getting roached out by the hourglass of time with that sick tight rust. As I often tell mine frens, I am husk, so I identify deeply with that little hoss. As is evident from my discussion above, my tattoo wiped my slate clean, not unlike the supreme cream buff that the middle dumpster must have received recently. I left that tattoo feeling like a freshly cut chia pet, which I will leave up to your imagination. That set me up for this sidequest to snap some photos, which is perfectly captured by the last dumpster on the left. Feeling hydrated, moisturized, and in my lane, I was locked in on all the textere's (the tag) and was scanning my world for buffs to photograph. In short, I was in one of my happy places, engrossed in a scavenger hunt to find more fun little textere and this little buddy below. HEY FREN! (hehe)

After all this, I finally made it to the victory camera and was able to yuck it up with some other local yokels. I met one of my neighbors who happened to order the last roll of cinestill 50d that victory camera had in stock. Given they had the sickest pink hair and the dopest shirt, I immediately bowed to them when they walked in to pick up the roll and said, "I am glad you got the last roll. You are indeed sick tight, my liege." We exchanged pleasantries and I found out that they too were a fiber artist. This set things over the edge, so I immediately tried to become their best friend. I asked them if they wanted to start a fiber art meet up at our local library. This is when they got apprehensive, which I immediately acknowledged. "Oh shoot, we just met and now I am asking you to invest time and energy into community building! My Bad!" I said. I tell you what, tattoos and a little side quest will do that. You will feel so smack dabbed in the flow zone that you will try to make all them local yokels your home skillet. I still messaged them though in the event that they were game for it. Unfortunately, I have not heard back.

OOO, this one was so fun to write. There were so many sections where I was just so pleased with how weird what I was writing was. If you think someone else would enjoy this little essay, would you be a pal and send it to them? As is evident from the story I told, I am always looking for other homies to share that analog life with who appreciate the tunes, the bikes, and the film. If you aren't signed up to get these essays right to your in-box, get your little paws to the keyboard and sign up below. I don't run a business anymore, because I am too sleepy. So, you don't have to pay me anything. This is just for the homies.